XP on Presario 1230 - 4MHZ Cyrix MediaGX?

[tyanni]

I installed Windows XP on an old laptop I had lying around, to play with it. It reports in System Properties that its a Cyrix MediaGX CPU running at 4MHZ... According to the bios, its a 233MHZ processor. Any ideas?

Thanks.
Tim

 

[daniel1113]

Windows cannot identify the speed properly most likely due to the fact that your CPU is not very well known.

 

[furie27]

Try cpuz if you're really concerned about it. I'm pretty sure it will recognize the older Cyrix processors. And believe me, XP ain't gonna run on a 4mhz processor.

 

[mrwxyz]

how did u even manage to install xp on that system....i thought the requirements were much higher

 

[LiLithTecH]

I believe the MediaGX chips topped out at 180MHz.
They were Cyrix's grand idea to make a everything on one
chip Processor (FPU, audio, video, I/O etc...) an were used
in a few Compaq notebooks.

Only problem was they were to expensive and at times you
could lite a cigarette with it.

 

[phlashphire]

A 4MHz?? How many days does it take to boot up?

 

[tyanni]

No, its definitely not a 4MHZ. BIOS reports it as a 233, which is odd if it only goes up to 180. And it boots fine, definitely slow, but not that slow. I guess Windows XP just isn't reporting it correctly. I will try CPU-Z. Thanks!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: tyanni
No, its definitely not a 4MHZ. BIOS reports it as a 233, which is odd if it only goes up to 180. And it boots fine, definitely slow, but not that slow. I guess Windows XP just isn't reporting it correctly. I will try CPU-Z. Thanks!

I've installed XP on a 233Mhz MediaGX desktop board as well. Pretty damn slow, though, but not slow enough to be running at 4Mhz. DXDIAG.EXE should show the true CPU speed, as well as as the "My Computer", "Properties" page.

PS. Did you ever manage to obtain sound drivers for XP? afaik, they don't exist. My board used a Cx5520 chipset, I believe.

 

[SearchMaster]

I believe the MediaGX uses AMD-like PR ratings, so it reports itself as a 233 even though it runs at 180.

And yes, I have one of these POS...works okay as a Ghost server 🙂

 

[tyanni]

I haven't even tried looking for sound drivers, as I ended up installing XP on another compaq laptop I had with a k6 266, which is much faster. That Cyrix MediaGX chip was just too slow to do anything. Basically, it sucked.

Tim

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: SearchMaster
I believe the MediaGX uses AMD-like PR ratings, so it reports itself as a 233 even though it runs at 180.

And yes, I have one of these POS...works okay as a Ghost server 🙂

The mobo that I have, actually has real clockspeed jumpers, for both 233Mhz and 180Mhz. You probably had the older chip version. And yes, they were slow as all heck. I've seen regular Pentium 166Mhz machines outrun them. The biggest killer is the lack of DMA-mode IDE HD support, on the Cx5520. The newer Cx5530 supposedly actually had UDMA-33 ports on it. Possibly then it could have been competitive with a Pentium 233Mhz on an Intel chipset, but I still doubt it.

I was toying with the idea of using that board for a car computer, since it has integrated video+sound, including composite video output. If I could get a cheap PSX LCD 5" screen, and figure a way to run the entire mobo off of a 5v adaptor or something, then it might just work.

 

[LiLithTecH]

VirtualLarry.

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